Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.
Graduation rates dipped last year across New York City by just over 2 percentage points to 81.2% — the largest year-over-year decline in more than two decades — as officials have reinstated requirements that were loosened during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the graduation rate across the state fell by just under 1 percentage point to 85.5%.
The drops in students graduating on time were most pronounced for some of the city’s most vulnerable children. Just 59% of students with disabilities graduated in four years, a drop of 5.5 percentage points. Nearly 52% of English language learners graduated in four years, down by about 3 percentage points.
The data, which state officials posted quietly online without the customary public announcement or press briefing, reveals the graduation rates for the Class of 2025. Those students began ninth grade in September 2021, the first time all students were required to attend school in person after the pandemic hit.
“They entered high school in a weird place,” said Sarah Part, a senior policy analyst at Advocates for Children, a group that provides support and legal help to low-income families. “It is possible that some students started ninth grade not as prepared as they otherwise would have been.”
Still, the city and state’s overall graduation rate remains higher than before the pandemic, when about 77% of city students graduated in four years and 83% of students statewide did.
City officials contend that last year’s dip was largely driven by resuming graduation standards that had been relaxed during the pandemic to account for disruptions to instruction. Some students received waivers from Regents exams or were allowed to appeal low scores.
Nearly 14% of city students relied on a Regents exam waiver to graduate in the Class of 2025, down from a whopping 53% in the Class of 2024, city officials said. (Nearly 53% of students successfully appealed low scores, a similar number as the year before.)
It is difficult to determine to what extent the graduation policy changes have affected the graduation rate because some students may have still graduated even without the more lenient standards.
Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College who has studied school performance, said it is possible the policy shifts are having a meaningful effect but it’s important to look at longer-term trends. “My perennial claim is don’t make too much of a one-year change,” he said.
Pallas said other factors could be playing a role. Rates of chronic absenteeism remain elevated, for instance, likely affecting students’ academic performance.
Grad rates drop significantly for students with disabilities and English learners
Andrew Wilder, an English as a second language teacher at Brooklyn’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School, said he was unsurprised that graduation rates for English learners dropped after soaring during the pandemic.
“The fact that students did not have to pass the English Regents — that led to a pretty substantial bump in the graduation rate,” he said. “It’s an English language test more than it is a test of a student’s high school ability.”
Even accounting for this year’s decline, however, graduation rates for that group are up about 11 percentage points since the pandemic hit.
Yet, dropout rates for English learners spiked to 18%, up 4 percentage points, city data show.
The city’s overall dropout rate increased slightly to 5.2%.
One group that bucked the trend: The dropout rate for students with disabilities fell slightly, to 6.7%. That could suggest some students who remain in school but didn’t graduate on time will still eventually earn a diploma.
“It’s possible students are just needing a little bit more time in high school,” said Part, from Advocates for Children.
The data reveal continued disparities in graduation rates between different racial groups. Nearly 92% of Asian American students graduated on time along with 87% of white students. About 77% of Black and Latino students graduated in four years. (Every racial group saw a decline.)
Education Department spokesperson Isla Gething wrote in a statement that the city remains “committed to high-quality instruction and strengthening targeted supports so that every student, especially students with disabilities and English language learners, has equitable access to rigorous instruction and clear pathways to graduation.”
Phasing out Regents offers opportunity to rethink graduation standards
The graduation rate fluctuations during and after the pandemic could hold important lessons for policymakers as they rethink what it should take to earn a diploma.
State officials are in the process of phasing out Regents exams — which have been in place since the mid-1800s — as a graduation requirement. Instead, New York students will need to meet a broader set of criteria demonstrating critical thinking, communication, and other skills known as the “portrait of a graduate.” State officials, however, have not unveiled the specific graduation standards students will be required to meet in the coming years.
Arlen Benjamin-Gomez, the executive director of EdTrust-New York, said the fluctuations for students with disabilities and English learners should prompt a broader conversation about how state officials can set appropriate standards for different groups.
It’s a “real opportunity to think about these two subgroups particularly, because this data really shows us how much they’re impacted by whatever the graduation measures are,” she said. “Having a disability shouldn’t be a reason that you are not able to graduate from high school.”
Still, she noted that officials must be careful to ensure that graduation standards remain rigorous and signify that students are ready for life after high school, including college or the workforce.
Wilder, the English as a second language teacher, was eager for more details and looks forward to spending less time teaching to the Regents exam. The test, he said, is often too far above his students’ level of English proficiency to be a useful measure of their learning.
“They come to believe that their inability to pass the English Regents is somehow a function of them as a student,” he said.
Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.
Alex Zimmerman 2026-03-09 19:58:25
Source link